


transference

by deathofglitter



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Other, an au in which leon dies in the confrontation with eternatus, in which faba is hired to investigate the bootleg instance of type: null in the galar region, in which the transference of consciousness into a mechanical body becomes an incredibly useful asset, in which...... rose makes horrendous mistakes in wake of the death of his champion, in which: leon isn't really dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26827645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathofglitter/pseuds/deathofglitter
Summary: The end of all good stories is exactly this, Leon thinks to himself.
Relationships: Dande | Leon & Kibana | Raihan, Dande | Leon & Kibana | Raihan & Sonia, Dande | Leon & Rose | Chairman Rose
Kudos: 17





	transference

****

**"Everything teaches transition, transference, metamorphosis:**   
**therein is human power, in transference,**   
**not in creation; & therein is human destiny, **   
**not in longevity but in removal.**   
**We dive & reappear in new places."**

**Ralph Waldo Emerson**   
**Transcendentalist**

The end of all good stories is exactly this, Leon thinks to himself.

There is plenty to contemplate, in a crash. There would be plenty to contemplate in a car crash, in a horrible, horrible accident-- precisely what this was, and precisely, now that he could admit to himself, the gnawing concern that prickled at the edge of his conscience in the late hours of the night. The possibility of failure seemed so far off, at least, since the beginning-- _ten years old, he's standing on the podium and the sponsors are looking at him with eyes fit to devour, do not worry about them, the Chairman smiled, the Chairman smiled, and Leon smiled, too. Twenty-three, the Chairman smiles, his face is particularly heavy as his lips part to reveal teeth too glossy and teeth too white. The tremors have been awfully concerning, Raihan thinks he's been making poor Flygon use Earthquake too much. Leon smiles. His face is awfully heavy._

There is plenty to contemplate in the planned and delicate intricacies of a long-standing plan— a glowing whiteness within your chest, the weight of the world buried between weak ribs and gentle, good-natured reassurances. Eleven years old. Chrysalis in the basement, cocoon, spread in pulsating brightness where your fingers make contact with the surface of it. Sanctity of a country caught between the jaws of a sleeping beast,  _ only you have the strength to contain such a thing,  _ he was warned, he heeded to this warning, wove it throughout his being. Plenty to contemplate. Plenty to reflect upon, in the advent of oblivion. 

Finally, he believes that he understands the dramatized segments shoehorned into the end of films and novels, where he would roll his eyes back and chastise how ridiculous it would be for your  _ whole  _ life to flash before your eyes.   


(Thirteen years old, hanging off a branch by trembling legs, jeering at Sonia from his upside-down world,  _ get down from there, you IDIOT--)  _

He realizes, very shortly, that it was everything and nothing like he had ever begun to expect. 

Falling, that is. 

_ Yeah.  _ Falling.  _ Uh, twenty-six years old, falling backwards because I have been hit in the chest with a burning ball of energy, I don’t know if it’s going to be very good for my back when I do finally-- _ _   
_

(His legs give way, the world spins and the Slumbering Weald spins in great streaks of black and green and blue and his head hits the ground. His head hits the ground, and there is a great burst of red behind his eyes, iron floods his nose.)   


_..It’s definitely not going to be very good, at all. Hope mom will be okay, hope I didn’t break anything, Orange and reds and pinks and hazy colors without name flash behind glazed eyes as he lays upon the ground, maybe it’d just be easier for those roots to swirl upward and feast upon the rest of his body and maybe I'll turn into that tree too, whatever,  _

He watches, in slow-motion, the way all good movies end-- the protagonist, hurtling to his doom,  _ Charizard,  _ orange and gleaming and his wings are out and--  _ his brother--  _ Charizard’s wings divert from him, wrap around the children clamoring for shelter from the enormous entity, opening its bony, darkened maw, glistening energy in the core of what looked to be a ribcage swirling about in its magenta intensity. There is infinity contained within the billowing monster, there is eternity spread across the glowing points between three burning eyes, there is something far, far less than an eternity caught in the space between vertebrae and disk, and he is blown backward. 

Slow motion. Charizard, his brother, himself, red of the roof, comical, slow motion, he can’t stop his head from falling back, seven years old, back of the CorviCab,  _ mom, what’s whiplash?  _ He mutters, he reads from the safety manual in the black leather fold of the seat in front of him, his mother sighs. The sky is red. The sea is blackened. There is no ocean, but there is an ocean contained within the sky— the blast that knocks him backward, the shattered remains of a ball thrown with all the dress rehearsals of a thousand performances to no audience, shattered upon the ground and smattered across the ground, all pieces of silvery, serrated railing.

The sky is red. Eternatus’ jaw unhinges— without a hinge to detach from, as it frees itself from a prison of light, as Leon lives backward— rewind, Charizard, Hop.. jaw, no hinge, light, gamma ray, supplementary education,  _ you are not a dropout, merely going through the system in a different way than most,  _ the Chairman had promised him, all the while, dragging him by a young, unassuming hand all the way to hellish confines of the Energy Plant, outlined in endless rings of light.  _ Astrological Science 101, don’t question how young you are for this, gamma rays,  _ Eternatus’ jaw, emaciated, skeletal thing, birth of a deathly being: oxymoron, oxymoron, oxymoron, oxymoron,  _ you’re such an oxymoron,  _ Sonia whines,  _ you’re such an oxy-MORON,  _ Leon laughs. 

_ Yeah, look at this, dude, Leon laughs, there's a small paper in his hand, lettered in fine print. Last, uh, will and testamen-- whatever, it's probably just a celebrity thing, you know. _

Here, Leon contemplates what it is to be in the center of such a thing: ribcage, the heart of. Leon contemplates what it is to be in the eye of a hurricane. Pidove, caught in the eye of the storm, teacher’s metaphor,  _ analogy, simile, what’s the difference even,  _ an iteration of himself since passed rambles onward,  _ whiplash,  _ neck bent back, silver railing behind him, it’s hardly far now, so close, in fact, he hardly registers the tingling ache in his back.  _ Whiplash. Pidove. Hurricane. Environmental Science class, no, you’re not a dropout, Leon, the Chairman reassures, the Chairman weaves a finger through silky black hair. 50% on the test. The Chairman sighs. If a Pidove were caught in the middle of a hurricane, would it: _

  1. _Be whipped into the storm with the rest of collateral debris?_
  2. _Will the Pidove_ _██████_ _escape unharmed?_
  3. _██████████████████████_
  4. _It really is the calmest part_ , he thinks. He cannot tell if he is bitter.



█. ██████████████████████████

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to everyone who's supported me in writing this so far, i'm incredibly proud of and incredibly excited to write this story, as bizarre and niche as it is. 
> 
> a special thank you to my dear friend laura (@melongifts on twitter) who drew the image at the beginning of this prologue, and to just about everyone else who's been excited for and supported me and lent ideas to the development of this. 
> 
> i'm sure i'll have a lot more to say come chapter one, but for now....... stay tuned!


End file.
